Ask yourself this question. Which is a better predictor of violent behavior, owning a gun or displaying yourself on Facebook as a badass? After today’s tragedy and all the calls for “we have to do something” let’s get to the root of the problem. Facebook promotes all kinds of abnormal behavior. It allows people to act out their fantasies in a completely unaccountable manner. What is swept under the rug is the fact that these people can be very easily identified. People who are acting out on Facebook are advertising their mental condition. Requiring Facebook to report these people is only good citizenship. I guarantee that without the Facebook platform, many crimes would never happen. For those complaining about NRA culpability, what about google, Facebook, and twitter culpability?

The only defense against the argument is the privacy concern. But let’s remember one thing. You are not forced to be a Facebook consumer. It is a choice. Can anyone who argues for gun control not argue for social media control? While I know some who use Facebook as a business tool, it is mainly nothing more than a gossip page. Your phone calls can be monitored but your Facebook feed cannot be monitored for safety concerns, with the same warrant from the court protections?

For some reason social media has been off limits to legal restrictions, monitoring, and accountability.
Many students at the Florida high school said if there was ever a school shooting this Cruz character would be the one to do it. All the signs were there and much of the information to confirm this was on Facebook, especially when combined with the kids school history. Let’s start focusing on what are the clearest indicators of mental health issues and have all of society contribute to a end to these school tragedies.

Which is a better predictor of violent behavior, owning a gun or displaying yourself on Facebook as a badass?

Click to expand...

USMB is not a good venue for posing that question as the rhetorical foundation for any sort of serious discussion on the matter of what be better or worse predictive correlates of violent behavior. It isn't because few to no folks here likely have read any of the research into the matter and techniques of accurately predicting violent behavior and even fewer are likely to refer to it when engaging in the discussion. Moreover, while there may be licensed psychologists/psychiatrists among the membership, I've not seen anyone attest to being so, let alone discuss matters as I'm used seeing such professionals do at conferences, seminars and symposia on matters of theoretical (science sense) and practical psychology. (FWIW, the psychology conferences, lectures and papers I attended/read for most of my career pertain to industrial psychology, but still after some 20+ years of exposure to such stuff/folks, one gets accustomed to psychologists' way of expressing things, I have yet to see it here.)

2008 -- Violence and Mental Illness
Are violence and mental illness synonymous, connected, or just coincidental phenomena? This article reviews the literature available to address this fundamental question and to investigate other vital topics, including etiology, comorbidity, risk factor management, and treatment. A psychiatrist who is well versed in the recognition and management of violence can contribute to the appropriate management of dangerous behaviors and minimize risk to patients, their families, mental health workers, and the community as a whole.

2016 -- Combining Behavioral and Structural Predictors of Violent Civil Conflict: Getting Scholars and Policymakers to Talk to Each Other
Large-N studies of civil war overwhelmingly consider the state-specific structural conditions that make conflict likely. Meanwhile, policymakers often ignore these factors and instead search for patterns among the behavioral triggers of violence. This article combines these approaches. I use conflict narratives from the International Crisis Group’s Crisis Watch publications to cross-validate structural analyses of civil conflict and confirm the mechanisms that lead to outbreaks of violence in conflict-prone countries. I then correct for selection bias in the narrative data with an underlying model of conflict likelihood. I find that several indicators thought to be causally related to civil conflict do indeed continue to have an effect after selection. [Note: This study's author, Gibler, wrote the abstract in the first person. I am not Gibler.]

2000 -- Predictors of Youth Violence
This Bulletin describes a number of such risk and protective factors, including individual, family, school, peer-related, community/neighborhood, and situational factors.

2007 -- Mental illness and violence: A brief review of research and assessment strategies. (Literature review)
This article examines the evolution of thought and research regarding the relationship between mental illness and violence, from studies in the early twentieth century through the more recent MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study. In addition, the article explores the state of knowledge and practices surrounding the assessment and management of violence risk among individuals with mental illness.

1994 -- Predicting Violent Behavior and Classifying Violent Offenders
This paper discusses the classification of individuals as violent persons and the prediction of individual acts of violence. It is based on a review of research reports that implicitly or explicitly define violence as physically harmful behavior carried out by an individual and directed against others. Thus we exclude research on such topics as collective violence (e.g., riots and wars), self-injury (e.g., suicide), and psychological violence (e.g., verbal aggression).

2006 -- Interpersonal Rejection as a Determinant of Anger and Aggression
This article reviews the literature on the relationship between interpersonal rejection and aggression. Four bodies of research are summarized: laboratory experiments that manipulate rejection, rejection among adults in everyday life, rejection in childhood, and individual differences that may moderate the relationship. The theoretical mechanisms behind the effect are then explored.

The documents above, along those referenced in them will give anyone here who actually cares what, given the extant knowledge on what is and isn't predictive of violent behavior. From there they can try to discern whether the dichotomy in the OP-er's question is even a legitimate one to ponder, thus whether/how to bother answering the question.

First I would mount a class action suit against Facebook, saying they were complicit in the Florida shootings by not flagging the Cruz kid. We know this is possible because they have already been caught restricting political speech they didn’t like on their website( so much for the free speech argument). I wouldn’t sue so much for money as much as to gain leverage for them to change their policies. If our legislators won’t do it, let the marketplace do it. Same for google or any other social media.

In Florida, I would create the position of social media counselor ar all schools. This person would be tasked with monitoring Facebook posts and any student concerns about Facebook posts and then sharing what he thought was concerning with law enforcement. While you would need guidelines to keep it from being voyeurism, this person could identify bullying, drug trafficking as well as mental,health issues.

Thirdly, I would create state agencies specifically to coordinate state information with federal databases. Pass state laws that allow states to require certain info from social media companies when red flags are raised especially for those under 21. Connect these investigations to gun sellers. Provide them with a watch list. Most of this is already happening in other areas of law enforcement.

Ask yourself this question. Which is a better predictor of violent behavior, owning a gun or displaying yourself on Facebook as a badass? After today’s tragedy and all the calls for “we have to do something” let’s get to the root of the problem. Facebook promotes all kinds of abnormal behavior. It allows people to act out their fantasies in a completely unaccountable manner. What is swept under the rug is the fact that these people can be very easily identified. People who are acting out on Facebook are advertising their mental condition. Requiring Facebook to report these people is only good citizenship. I guarantee that without the Facebook platform, many crimes would never happen. For those complaining about NRA culpability, what about google, Facebook, and twitter culpability?

The only defense against the argument is the privacy concern. But let’s remember one thing. You are not forced to be a Facebook consumer. It is a choice. Can anyone who argues for gun control not argue for social media control? While I know some who use Facebook as a business tool, it is mainly nothing more than a gossip page. Your phone calls can be monitored but your Facebook feed cannot be monitored for safety concerns, with the same warrant from the court protections?

For some reason social media has been off limits to legal restrictions, monitoring, and accountability.
Many students at the Florida high school said if there was ever a school shooting this Cruz character would be the one to do it. All the signs were there and much of the information to confirm this was on Facebook, especially when combined with the kids school history. Let’s start focusing on what are the clearest indicators of mental health issues and have all of society contribute to a end to these school tragedies.

Click to expand...

Facebook is just the new version of standing in the park telling everyone how cool you are and should be treated so legally.

1,396,000 people have died in all US wars combined in our entire history, and that includes all the deaths from non-gun related causes like disease.

1,516,000 people have died from gunshots since 1968 in the US. That includes suicides and murders and every other death by gunshot in the US. And that was through 2015.

We can only estimate the number of gun deaths from 1776-1968, which are not added to the total. More people have died by gun violence in the US than soldiers that have died in all the wars we have fought in our history combined.

Ask yourself this question. Which is a better predictor of violent behavior, owning a gun or displaying yourself on Facebook as a badass? After today’s tragedy and all the calls for “we have to do something” let’s get to the root of the problem. Facebook promotes all kinds of abnormal behavior. It allows people to act out their fantasies in a completely unaccountable manner. What is swept under the rug is the fact that these people can be very easily identified. People who are acting out on Facebook are advertising their mental condition. Requiring Facebook to report these people is only good citizenship. I guarantee that without the Facebook platform, many crimes would never happen. For those complaining about NRA culpability, what about google, Facebook, and twitter culpability?

The only defense against the argument is the privacy concern. But let’s remember one thing. You are not forced to be a Facebook consumer. It is a choice. Can anyone who argues for gun control not argue for social media control? While I know some who use Facebook as a business tool, it is mainly nothing more than a gossip page. Your phone calls can be monitored but your Facebook feed cannot be monitored for safety concerns, with the same warrant from the court protections?

For some reason social media has been off limits to legal restrictions, monitoring, and accountability.
Many students at the Florida high school said if there was ever a school shooting this Cruz character would be the one to do it. All the signs were there and much of the information to confirm this was on Facebook, especially when combined with the kids school history. Let’s start focusing on what are the clearest indicators of mental health issues and have all of society contribute to a end to these school tragedies.

Click to expand...

.​

Wouldn't it be easier just to say that the NRA has 5 million members ...
While there are over 100 million gun owners ... ​

Ask yourself this question. Which is a better predictor of violent behavior, owning a gun or displaying yourself on Facebook as a badass? After today’s tragedy and all the calls for “we have to do something” let’s get to the root of the problem. Facebook promotes all kinds of abnormal behavior. It allows people to act out their fantasies in a completely unaccountable manner. What is swept under the rug is the fact that these people can be very easily identified. People who are acting out on Facebook are advertising their mental condition. Requiring Facebook to report these people is only good citizenship. I guarantee that without the Facebook platform, many crimes would never happen. For those complaining about NRA culpability, what about google, Facebook, and twitter culpability?

The only defense against the argument is the privacy concern. But let’s remember one thing. You are not forced to be a Facebook consumer. It is a choice. Can anyone who argues for gun control not argue for social media control? While I know some who use Facebook as a business tool, it is mainly nothing more than a gossip page. Your phone calls can be monitored but your Facebook feed cannot be monitored for safety concerns, with the same warrant from the court protections?

For some reason social media has been off limits to legal restrictions, monitoring, and accountability.
Many students at the Florida high school said if there was ever a school shooting this Cruz character would be the one to do it. All the signs were there and much of the information to confirm this was on Facebook, especially when combined with the kids school history. Let’s start focusing on what are the clearest indicators of mental health issues and have all of society contribute to a end to these school tragedies.

Click to expand...

.​

Wouldn't it be easier just to say that the NRA has 5 million members ...
While there are over 100 million gun owners ... ​

.​

Click to expand...

That does NOT mean that gun owners who don't belong to the NRA have a secret desire to give up their guns. A lot of people don't belong to the NRA because they don't belong to anything. If the government should seize the member list of the NRA they have a wealth of information they can use against people.

The real problem is the ridiculous slippery slope fallacy propagated by the NRA and most on the right that any appropriate, Constitutional firearm regulatory measures enacted will result in a ‘new’ AWB and ‘gun confiscation.’

The NRA and conservatives are at their most moronic when they oppose measures that have nothing to do with the regulation of firearms.

Useful Searches

About USMessageBoard.com

USMessageBoard.com was founded in 2003 with the intent of allowing all voices to be heard. With a wildly diverse community from all sides of the political spectrum, USMessageBoard.com continues to build on that tradition. We welcome everyone despite political and/or religious beliefs, and we continue to encourage the right to free speech.

Come on in and join the discussion. Thank you for stopping by USMessageBoard.com!